Visual Rhetoric
10-03-05
Visual Rhetoric in the National Football League
The National Football League, from a business standpoint, centers on advertisement and commercial productivity. Visual rhetoric is employed as the driving force to promote the success of these businesses. There are myriad different methods by which a franchise may use visual rhetoric and they often define the visual nature of the game. Although the techniques are numerous, the effect of visual rhetoric on the National Football League can be discovered through the study of a few important artifacts. For a more specific study this paper will address the logo of the Pittsburgh Steelers football club. However, with regard to advertising, it will concern itself with a few commercials that are employed by the entire NFL and its main source of revenue, television advertisements.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the most glorified franchises in the professional football business. The organization has existed since the creation of the modern NFL. Surprisingly, since that time they are one of the only teams to never have changed their icon, or emblem. This can certainly be attributed in part to the stability of their ownership, but not so far as it may be ascribed to its effectiveness. Their emblem is the exact symbol used by United States Steel Corporation during the height of its power, and sometimes still today.
The symbol is a metaphor for the Steelers. It is expressing that the players are made of steel. The nature of the game requires that the players exhibit certain attributes that are commonly associated with steel. The symbol makes the visual argument that these men do in fact have those qualities of steel. Another rhetorical device which helps to make the argument effective is “presence”. One does not just see this emblem on the side of football player’s helmets, but also on products made from steel. This enhances the argument’s presence in the best way possible, to make the object physically present, and joined with that which it signifies.
The symbol holds an especially significant meaning to Pittsburgh, “the Steel City”, and its residents. It has even served to construct a cultural memory for the people. The evil destructive nature of the steel industry is forgotten by the modern generation, because the symbol for the product has been portrayed in such a positive light. In this regard it may be said that the National Football League has served to change the meaning of the signifier for US Steel. What once may have made many residents of Pittsburgh cringe now is adorned by almost all of the people.
The drastic change in the meaning of the image suggests that the symbol may in the culture of Pittsburgh and American Football, be considered an “icon”. The celebrity and frequency are the most immediate indication that the symbol is an icon which shapes thought. Its tendency to be replicated also contributes to its iconic status. As was discussed earlier, the symbol works to define a greater idea so it is a metonym. It represents the concept of strength and Pittsburgh’s former dominance of the steel industry.
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Images in sports are often thought of as mascots or emblems; however advertisers have used the popularity and influence of the NFL to promote their products. They have even gone so far as to become a part of the game, or make a television viewer feel that they are a part of it. One of the most vivid examples of such advertising strategies is the television commercial for Nike that advertises their new “Michael Vick” shoe. It places an adolescent boy in an amusement park ride, but one that puts him in Michael Vick’s position on the field. The kid experiences a full football play that Vick may have run and the boy scores a touchdown. The commercial effectively employs the most influential concept of film rhetoric, identification. The targeted audience is younger males, because they are sporting shoes, probably males who are athletic. The visual elements of the commercial create a “mirror stage” through which a viewer of the targeted audience may identify with the boy. Quick camera movement, bright grass on the field, and angry defenders create an image of intensity that allows the consumer, represented by the boy, to identify with Michael Vick. The product is promoted by communicating that if a consumer wants to continue this identification with such talented athlete, they must purchase the shoes. This is how the NFL runs its business. Through interrelated visual cues which associate positive feelings embodied by the game of football, players may use their ethos to advertise a certain product, or in the league’s case, they have created a visual avenue for advertisers to reach a huge and very narrow market.
Perhaps the most successful football advertising campaign of all time was the long-running commercial series, “The Bud Bowl”. For twenty years, every Super Bowl would feature a series of commercials throughout the game that would depict bottles of Budweiser beer playing a Super Bowl against Bud Light beers. It would be simple to evaluate these commercials from the same standpoint of identification that was just used for the Nike ad. However, there is another crucial element of film rhetoric at work in these and similar beer commercials during National Football League games, film interpretation. Film is a transactional process between the director, the actors, and the audience. In this case there are no actors, but the beer bottles serve the same purpose. According to Ogden and Richards, they are part of the semiotic process called the “sign vehicle”, and their purpose is to carry the sign to the audience. The “referent” in this situation, is the intended impression that the creator hoped to achieve among his viewers. The “sense” is what meaning the audience actually derives from the semiotic experience. Ogden and Richards classify semiotic transfer as a triangular process involving each of these three parts. The “sign vehicle” carries the “referent” to an audience which creates the “sense”. The NFL provides one of the only possible environments for the referent to get a positive sense from the audience. The passions and attitudes of the NFL fans make them susceptible to the influence of visual rhetoric. The league has been successful at exploiting its unique opportunity, and has translated it into a multi-billion dollar mega-industry.